Hmmm you do not have any id on which the groups can be qualified. So it would not be possible to get the first row of each group. You can however get the row with minimum or maximum emp_id or sss_no per group by using a self-join.

I agree with you. You are perfectly right when you have date field or something to get the first and last employee in a field. But when you have a table emp_list with fields emp_id, sss_no and dept you cant get the first inserted or last inserted raw. Even if you find a solution it will not be consistent.

By the way there were such identical solutions in Oracle in 2001 also for getting the first or last record based on a field. still there. Still the RDBM concept stands good for oracle like any other RDBMS.